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What Rick Mercer Didn’t Tell Us About the ZENN Car

The only viable way to drive an electric car is using a diesel-electric drive-train. Sturdy, decades of proven reliability and no need to change any infrastructure nor waste time on the fruitless pursuit of the ultimate battery.

Why weren’t the profound limitations of an electric car the butt of a comedian’s jokes?

Rick Mercer is a Canadian comedian/satirist employed by the publicly-funded Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. Like his American colleague, Jon Stewart, he spends much of his time commenting on current affairs.

First and foremost, Mercer is an entertainer – a performer who wants to make us laugh. But once you notice that only certain kinds of people and ideas end up on the receiving end of the joke, his schtick gets a bit tiresome.

A friend recently sent me a link to a piece Mercer did on the made-in-Canada ZENN (zero emission, no noise) car. The video originally aired in 2007 and is less than six minutes long.

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There’s no doubt it’s good for a chuckle, but it’s also outrageously misleading. Mercer suggests that Tory government ministers are perversely hostile to this revolutionary, allegedly non-polluting…